The Shortest Journey (9 page)

‘She was round here last week.’

‘What!’

‘Last Monday, was it? Yes, that’s right, because that
was the day I had to take Pixie to Mr Hawkins to have her booster
shot and she was waiting on the doorstep when I got back.’

‘How did she seem?’

‘Funny you should ask that.’ Ella said. ‘She seemed a
bit agitated, a bit emotional, if you know what I mean. She didn’t
stay long, but when she hugged Sandy here it seemed as if she
couldn’t bear to let him go. It was worse, almost, than when she
brought him. And a funny thing – she made me take some money for
his keep. I didn’t want to – well, you know how I feel; as long as
I can manage on my little pension – but she was so insistent that
in the end I took it, but it didn’t feel right…’

‘I honestly don’t know how you manage,’ I said, ‘what
with the price of cat food, not to mention Kittylitta. But did she
say anything? Mrs Rossiter, I mean.’

‘Nothing special, it was just her manner, really.
Why?’

I told Ella about Mrs Rossiter’s disappearance.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘it’s almost as if she knew she
wouldn’t be coming back. Coming to see Sandy and going away so
upset like that.’

‘It does seem strange. But she couldn’t have gone off
somewhere deliberately without telling anyone where she was going.
You know what she was like; she wouldn’t have made people upset
like that for the world. Besides, where could she have gone? She
only had Thelma and her sister in Scotland, and we know she’s not
with either of them.’

We sat silently for a moment and then Ella said,
‘Well, whatever happened to her, poor soul, at least she knows that
Sandy’s well cared for.’

She got to her feet and put the marmalade cat back on
to my lap.

‘I’ll go and put the kettle on,’ she said.

I sat absently stroking his fine head and considered
what Ella had told me. If Mrs Rossiter had gone off somewhere to
take her own life, most probably she would have gone to say goodbye
to Sandy and she would certainly have been very emotional. If, on
the other hand, she’d gone to meet someone in Taunton, as Mr
Cooper’s story seemed to imply, then perhaps she had expected to be
away for some time. But in that case, why had she acted so out of
character and said she’d be back for tea when she must have known
that she wouldn’t?

The problem seemed insoluble. I looked round the room
at the cats. Each was sitting in what was obviously its ‘own’
place. Some were dozing, some were regarding me with interest and
curiosity, some were occupied with their own mysterious feline
thoughts, but all looked perfectly content, accepting their lot
with equanimity. I thought how much better adjusted they were than
their human counterparts, also in their last refuge, at West Lodge.
But then what they had here was not just food and shelter and
impersonal care, but Ella’s love, and that, of course, made all the
difference.

After I left Ella’s I went into Stevens’s to buy a
bottle of fertiliser for my tomato plants. Stevens’s is the last
really old-fashioned shop we have in Taviscombe. It is basically a
proper ironmonger’s where men in brown overalls will still sell you
half a dozen screws, that is, if you are prepared to wait upwards
of half an hour while they engage other (male) customers in
mysterious conversations which abound in phrases like ‘medium-sized
mole’ and ‘laminated five-by-two’. In addition they have a
gardening section, where proper tools like bill-hooks and
scythe-heads are all jumbled up with modern gadgets for
trouble-free gardening and great sacks full of broad beans, peas
and runner-bean seed. Round the corner are shelves of kitchenware
and plastic cups and plates for picnics, as well as the boxed sets
of glasses, plated toast racks and gift packs of ovenware which
usually feature prominently among the presents at a Taviscombe
wedding.

I was threading my way cautiously around this section
of the shop (the display shelves were piled so high that one was in
constant danger of bringing the whole thing crashing to the ground)
when I found myself face to face with Ivy.

‘Oh, Mrs Malory! Fancy bumping into you. I was going
to come and see you tomorrow.’

‘Ivy, how nice. Was it something special? Though, of
course, you know I’m always glad to see you.’

‘It’s for a reference.’

‘A reference? But – what for – I mean, I thought you
were quite settled at West Lodge. I’m sure Mrs Wilmot would be very
sorry to see you go.’

Ivy made a sound halfway between a snort and a
sob.

‘Well, she wasn’t – she’s given me the sack!’

‘No! She couldn’t!’

‘Well, as good as – and it’s so unfair, Mrs
Malory!’

Her voice rose and there were tears in her eyes.
Other customers turned their heads to look at us curiously.

‘Look, Ivy,’ I said hastily, ‘why don’t we pop into
the Buttery, it’s just across the road. And you can tell me all
about it over a nice cup of tea.’

When we were settled at a quiet table with our tea
and a slice of orange cake for Ivy (‘I shouldn’t really, I don’t
want to spoil my tea – but it does look so tempting) she was a
little calmer.

‘Now then, Ivy, tell me all about it. Whatever
happened?’

‘Well, it was when Mrs Rossiter went off like that.
You can imagine what a stew everything was in, with the police
there and Mrs Rossiter’s daughter laying down the law – you know
the way she does – and Mrs Wilmot in such a state. Talk about
bad-tempered. I said to Maureen (she helps Cook in the kitchen),
Maureen, I said, you’d think it was our fault Mrs Rossiter’s gone
off the way her ladyship goes on at us. We can’t seem to do
anything right.’

Ivy cut her cake into a number of minute pieces and
conveyed one of them neatly to her mouth.

I said soothingly, ‘I expect she’s been very worried,
but it does seem hard that she should take it out on you.’

‘That’s right. Anyway. It was on the Tuesday that Mrs
Rossiter went and what with one thing and another I didn’t get to
give her room a good clean until the Thursday. Well, the police
said we shouldn’t touch anything and they went through all her
things – looking for clues, I suppose, though I don’t think they
had any call to look through the poor lady’s diary. Not that they
found anything, just appointments with the dentist and people’s
birthdays. I don’t suppose the poor thing had much else to put in
her diary anyway, in that miserable place! Where was I? Oh yes,
well, I gave the room a good hoovering and I was just going to dust
round when her ladyship came in. You know how she is, she always
has to stand there and watch you working, just to see if she can
find fault. Well, as I say, I was standing there with the duster in
my hand when she suddenly said, “What’s become of Mrs Rossiter’s
ivory figurine?” I expect you know the piece she meant, Mrs Malory;
it’s that little statue of a deer. She used to keep it on the top
of her desk with some photographs.’

‘Yes, I know the one you mean.’

‘I said, “I don’t know, I’m sure. Perhaps it’s
slipped down behind the desk.” So we pulled the desk out but it
wasn’t there. Then she flew into quite a rage and as good as
accused me of stealing it. “What will Mrs Douglas think!” she kept
saying. Though it seems to me, Mrs Malory, if your poor mother’s
gone missing like that you really won’t be bothered if an
ornament’s been mislaid!’

I thought that Thelma’s reaction would depend on the
value of the figurine. ‘“The police will have to be told
immediately,” she said, and I said, “Well, perhaps they’ve taken
it, because they were the last people in Mrs Rossiter’s room, not
me.” Then she really flared up and said that if I was going to be
impertinent I would really have to go. Well, you know me, Mrs
Malory, that’s not me at all. I didn’t mean the police had stolen
it – I thought it might have been evidence or something. Oh, I was
upset! So I said that I was certainly not going to stay in a place
where I was accused of stealing and I walked right out. You’d have
done the same, Mrs Malory. And I haven’t been back. Maureen put my
bits and bobs together – my overalls and my old shoes that I keep
there – and brought them round for me the next day. And I won’t go
back, Mrs Malory, not if she was to go down on her knees. Anyway
I’ve got this job at Brockwell Lodge – it’s a lovely place, used to
be a gentleman’s residence – and not so many patients either.
Captain and Mrs Fairweather (he used to be in the Navy) run it and
they’re ever so nice. Well, they know how things should be done,
they were brought up to it, like your dear mother. They were ever
so pleased to have me but, of course, I wasn’t going to ask Mrs
Wilmot for a reference, which is why I was coming to see you to ask
you to speak for me.’

‘Yes, of course, Ivy, I should be delighted. I think
the Fairweathers are very lucky to have got you.’

Privately, I feared that Brockwell Lodge would
probably last no longer than many similar residential homes for the
elderly which had mushroomed in Taviscombe in the last five or six
years. They tended to be run by ex-Service people, some, like the
Fairweathers, full of good intentions, genuinely wanting to give
value for money but often hopeless at managing the business side of
things, gradually losing their capital and finally selling out at a
loss. There were others run strictly for profit by the more
unscrupulous, who provided only the minimum that would get them by
the Ministry Inspectors; grim places where unsympathetic relatives
left their now burdensome parents to wait for death. There were
quite a few of these. However, I didn’t feel that this was the time
to voice my feelings about Brockwell Lodge to Ivy.

‘I’ll write a reference tonight so that you can take
it to Captain Fairweather tomorrow.’

‘Oh, thank you, Mrs Malory. They know I was at West
Lodge, but I didn’t tell them exactly why I left. I just said that
I didn’t get on with Mrs Wilmot. Well, that’s true enough, isn’t
it?’

‘That’s all right, Ivy, I’ll skirt round that point.
It’s funny, though, about that little figurine. No,’ I said hastily
as she seemed about to interrupt me, ‘no, of course I don’t think
you took it. But I wonder what could have happened to it. Was
anyone else in her room – apart from the police, I mean – anyone
you didn’t know?’

She took a sip of tea and, finding it rather hot,
blew delicately into her cup. She put the cup down carefully in the
saucer and said, ‘Not after she went, no.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, there was that man – I’ve only just remembered
him, this very minute – with you asking that …”

‘What man?’

‘It was about ten days before poor Mrs Rossiter went
off. In the afternoon, just after dinner – they have it at twelve,
you know, so it’s over quick and her ladyship can have hers at one
on the dot. Anyway, I’d just given Maureen a hand with the clearing
up – not that it was my job, but they were shorthanded – and I
went to that big cupboard in the kitchen to put some things away
and I saw the packets of light-bulbs they keep there, and so then I
remembered that her ladyship had told me to put a new bulb in the
passage, just by the stairs, you know. It’s very dark in that
corner, quite dangerous for the old people. So I was just going
along to do it when I saw this man and he asked me if I could tell
him the way to Mrs Rossiter’s room.’

‘What was he like? Young or old?’

‘Well, that I couldn’t say, Mrs Malory. Like I said,
that corner’s very dark and he had his back to the light from the
front door, where he’d come in.’

‘What did his voice sound like?’

‘He was a foreigner, that I can tell you. He had a
very funny accent, quite strong it was.’

‘What sort of accent?’

‘Oh, I don’t know that! All sound alike to me,
foreigners do!’

‘Did he find Mrs Rossiter’s room?’

‘Oh, yes. Well, I told him which way to go and later
on, when I was passing her room, I heard voices.’

‘I wonder who he was?’

‘That I couldn’t say, though I wondered at the time
if he wasn’t something to do with one of those overseas missions.
Well, Mrs Rossiter always went to church regular, twice a day some
Sundays.’ She took another sip of her tea and said reflectively, ‘I
thought he might be a missionary.’

‘Whatever makes you think that?’

‘Well, when I was passing the door I thought I heard
Mrs Rossiter saying something about Christian duty. Not that I was
eavesdropping, mind, that’s not me, Mrs Malory, as you know, but
she was talking about Christian duty and the foreigner said it was
the last chance to save something or someone, I couldn’t rightly
say which. I suppose it was these poor famine victims that you see
on the television, it breaks your heart to see them, poor little
mites. And Mrs Rossiter was very generous. I expect he’d come to
ask her for money for the mission.’

‘I suppose it might have been ... And that’s all you
heard?’

‘Oh yes, like I said, I was just passing the door – I
was going to get that end room ready for a new lady – you know poor
Mr Robson passed on? A merciful release, you might say, but his
poor daughter was ever so upset. Such a nice woman, she was always
very pleasant to me.’

‘Ivy, I do think you ought to tell Mrs Wilmot about
this man.’

Her lips set in a firm line.

‘Oh no, Mrs Malory, I couldn’t do that. I shan’t
cross that threshold again.’ She looked at me triumphantly, pleased
with her dramatic statement.

‘Well, the police, then.’

‘Oh, I couldn’t go to the police! They’d ask me why I
wasn’t still working there. They might think I’d stolen that little
statue. No, Mrs Malory, I’ll let well alone, thank you very
much.’

She picked up a few remaining crumbs of cake on her
plate delicately with her finger and put them in her mouth.

‘Well, I did enjoy that. I’d better be on my way or
Benjy will think I’ve deserted him.’